Future of La Villita will be discussed tonight

By Scott Huddleston - Express-News :
September 8, 2010

The city will unveil drafts of a mission statement on what La Villita is now and a vision statement for its future during a meeting at 6 tonight in the Central Library auditorium.

City officials and an ad hoc committee are seeking input tonight on La Villita, the city's oldest neighborhood and a downtown venue for shopping and special events.

The ad hoc panel, representing stakeholders in and around La Villita, is developing guiding principles for its future operations, in response to a retail management study. The city leases to 26 La Villita tenants but has been advised by a consultant to consider hiring a company to manage the area.

In a meeting set for 6 tonight in the Central Library auditorium at 600 Soledad St., the city will unveil drafts of a mission statement on what La Villita is now and a vision statement for its future.

Market Square, another historic downtown retail area that's owned and managed by the city, is undergoing a similar process.

“Market Square has a pretty clear vision of what it wants to be, but La Villita can be so many things,” from a cluster of more than 20 studios and galleries to the site of A Night in Old San Antonio, said Paula Stallcup, downtown operations director.

City staff plans to make its first presentations on La Villita and Market Square to the City Council next month, Stallcup said.

In the 1700s, during the Alamo's mission era, La Villita was dotted with huts inhabited by squatters and farm workers. European settlers built houses there in the 1800s. The area had become a slum by the time Mayor Maury Maverick Sr. led an effort to save it in the late 1930s.

Maverick's 21-page “Villita Ordinance” of 1939 called for an artisans community that balanced history with “needs of today and tomorrow.”

Sherry Disdier, president of the La Villita Tenants Association and a member of the ad hoc committee, said the updated vision should incorporate Maverick's desire to make La Villita a symbol of peace and cooperation throughout the Western Hemisphere.

“You can't look at it as just being a number of retail shops,” she said. “It is the birthright of the entire city of San Antonio.”